


All the World to Me

by walkthegale



Category: The Bletchley Circle, The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco (TV)
Genre: Beach Sex, Character Study, Established Relationship, F/F, Femslash, Home, Outdoor Sex, Smut, Swimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 08:21:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29996565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkthegale/pseuds/walkthegale
Summary: Jean’s kiss tastes like home, the same way that this wild shore and the salt on the wind and the distant, towering redwoods all smell like home.
Relationships: Millie Harcourt/Jean McBrian
Comments: 7
Kudos: 29





	All the World to Me

Millie wonders what her family might think of her now.

She’s sitting on a remote stretch of beach beside the Pacific Ocean, with a thin picnic rug between her and the damp, cool sand beneath. She’s wearing trousers, and a matching jacket, and her lipstick is a deep, glorious red, and she knows she looks damned good. The turned heads in town tell her that, if nothing else. She can picture her mother’s reaction right down to the exact angle she would hold her head, her narrowed eyes and her face held in that carefully neutral expression. The one that Millie could never quite master.

Millie leans forward, there in her trouser suit with the ocean breeze whipping through her hair, and she kisses Jean McBrian, leaving Jean’s lips stained red.

This is not remotely the most scandalous thing she has ever done - not by a long shot. She wonders each time, briefly, in the back of her head, what they would think. Her mother and her father, her siblings. What they might say to her, if they saw her. When she was younger these thoughts hurt. Now she’s long grown, and comfortable in her skin, and they play out more as habit, a little ritual. She banishes them and turns her mind to the task at hand.

Jean’s kiss tastes like home, the same way that this wild shore and the salt on the wind and the distant, towering redwoods all smell like home. The same way the streets of San Francisco with all their ridiculous hills and endless vistas, and that fog that rolls in off the ocean and blankets the world - all feels like home now. Even the bloody diner. Even their strange little flat, no, _especially_ their strange little flat, that they live in together, and all the people who visit them there.

Home is such a strange word, filled to the brim with varied, conflicting implications. Millie has used it in so very many ways, over the years, to cover such a multitude of situations.

Jean’s eyes are dark, and she’s breathing hard, and when she reaches for Millie again, Millie goes into her arms willingly. She likes to think that she pushes Jean down to the ground on her back, but if she’s honest, she’s not sure that Jean didn’t engineer the whole situation and pull Millie down on top of her. Either way, Millie finds herself lying full length on Jean, propped on her elbows, their bodies crushed together tightly enough that she can feel half the buttons of Jean’s blouse digging into her skin.

She laughs and kisses Jean again, first her mouth, then the line of her jaw, her throat, down her neck, heady with Jean’s perfume, and across her chest until fabric gets in the way. Mille considers stripping Jean bare, right there on the beach with the ocean and the birds watching them, but there’s a chill in the air, and she doubts it would truly be as much fun as the picture of it is in her head.

Instead, she slides one hand further down, over Jean’s soft blouse and the place where it’s coming disgracefully untucked from her waistband. Over the scratchy, practical wool of Jean’s skirt, down to where the hemline brushes her knees. She’s just taken hold of the hem and is pulling it upwards when Jean’s hand lands on top of hers.

When Millie looks up, Jean is looking back at her, with one eyebrow raised. Millie grins in return, keeps up the gentle pressure, Jean’s hand sliding up along with Millie’s own, the skirt in tow.

“Oh, all right then,” Jean says, like she’s doing Millie some great favour, though with a smile and a catch in her voice that belies the indifference of her words. Millie can’t help but pause her activities to reach up and kiss Jean hard, her mouth hot and eager, catching Jean’s lower lip between her teeth.

There are no more playful protests when she returns to her task, bunching skirt and slip up around Jean’s hips to give herself the access she needs. Jean shifts helpfully to allow Millie to tug down her knickers, then parts her legs.

Exposed to the air, Jean shivers a little, and then again when Millie lowers her head, presses kisses to Jean’s soft inner thighs, breathes deeply of the delicious scent of her. She nuzzles at Jean’s damp curls, just the lightest brush with nose and lips, that has Jean groan Millie’s name and bury her hands in her hair. She can feel Jean resisting the urge to pull her in closer, and so for a moment she stays still, letting her warm breath be the only thing that touches Jean, keeping up the facade that she might deny Jean this. That she could ever deny Jean anything at all.

“Millie, _please_.”

Such a small word, drawn so tight and breathy. Millie is helpless in its thrall. She leans in and runs the flat of her tongue through heat and silk and wet, in a long, firm stroke that Jean presses up into with a wordless moan. The sound of it is different out here to within the walls of their flat. Clearer; richer, somehow. Millie wants to hear it again, and again.

Fortunately for Millie, she has always been an able student, and she keeps on learning - all the nuances of Jean’s body, every reaction catalogued and considered as though knowing the pattern of it might save their lives.

She knows, as a result, the exact moment at which sliding two fingers inside of Jean will be the most effective, and the angle to curve them to. She pays attention to Jean’s breathing, feels the little twitches of Jean’s muscles as she tenses, and knows the pace to set with her tongue and lips, when to tease, and when to devote herself in earnest to Jean’s clit, fingers still buried in her cunt. Jean is not quiet. Jean is never quiet, not when she doesn’t have to be, and Millie loves her all the more for it.

And then Millie hears something else. There’s the briefest moment where she stills, where Jean’s moan turns into a whine of frustration and then rapidly into a gasp of shock as Millie slips her fingers out and flings the whole of herself up Jean’s body. She lands half on top of her, clamps her hand firmly over Jean’s mouth, and hisses, “ _shhhh!_ ” in her ear.

Fortunately for the both of them, Jean thinks quickly in a crisis, and she complies immediately, becoming utterly still and almost silent, clearly fighting to slow her breaths.

Somewhere in the distance down the long, empty stretch of beach, fortunately still hidden from view by a number of rocky outcrops, the unmistakable sound of other people reaches them both. Hikers, probably, out for a day trip just like theirs. Well, Millie contemplates Jean’s cheek a bare fraction of an inch from her own, perhaps not _quite_ just like theirs. The noise suddenly includes the sound of barking, and while under normal circumstances Millie would be thrilled to meet a dog, it definitely raises their chances of being sniffed out like this.

Jean has clearly had the same thought and has begun to move. Millie sits up too and starts to tidy herself, quickly and quietly, straightening her blouse and hair and makeup as best she’s able. Jean, meanwhile, has pulled her skirt down and is frantically hunting for her missing knickers. She doesn’t find them, but she does spot her cane a little distance away, and reaches for it in case she needs to stand. Millie can see that Jean’s a little stiff from being on the ground, and she hopes fervently that this rendezvous hasn’t made Jean’s bad leg cause her too much trouble.

The sounds have neared, in the meantime, though it’s difficult to tell by how much out here. Millie finds she’s holding her breath, somehow terrified of being caught despite the fact that they both appear quite respectable by now, as long as no one looks too closely.

It’s not the most scandalous thing Millie has ever done and it also wouldn’t be the most scandalous thing she’s ever been _caught_ doing ( _that_ might have been the earl’s daughter, during a particularly memorable party). But she finds herself loath to take any risks in this particular situation. Not in this new life that they’re only just beginning to feel out, not in _Jean’s_ new life. Millie’s isn’t the only reputation on the line.

The sounds are fading again, she’s sure of it. The voices and feet are quieter, almost inaudible, and then the dog barks and it’s definitely more distant than it was.

Millie and Jean wait, both absolutely still, until they’re sure they’re entirely alone on the beach once more. Looking up and catching Jean’s eye, Millie lets out a long, slightly shaky breath.

And then Jean begins to laugh, her entire face creasing up with mirth, and, with a deep wash of relief, Millie finds herself joining in. She laughs until she has to lean her forehead against Jean’s shoulder and wipe tears from her eyes before they make her mascara run.

“Not quite as private as we’d hoped, then,” Jean says after a few minutes.

Millie shakes her head, still too breathless with laughter to speak. She looks out at the wild, endless sea and gathers herself a bit. “Shall we go home?” she manages to say, eventually. Home, to their strange, _wonderful_ little flat, where they can lock the door against the world and no passing stranger can get between them.

But Jean is eyeing Millie speculatively, and she has a look on her face, that one that she gets sometimes that makes Millie’s heart do a jitterbug in her chest.

“Oh, I think we’ll be all right out here for a little longer,” Jean says. “I’m not quite finished with you yet.”

Millie watches, utterly spellbound, as Jean reaches out and takes Millie’s hand - the one that mere minutes ago was buried inside her - and brings it to her lips. Slowly, meticulously, Jean licks the taste of herself from Millie’s fingers, taking each into her mouth in turn, drawing her tongue and teeth over the pads of them. She finishes by pressing a lingering kiss to Millie’s palm, and by that point Millie isn’t sure she can remember so much as her own name.

When Jean leans in to kiss Millie hard, pushing her down onto the blanket, Millie is powerless to resist even if she wanted to. Jean straddles Millie’s thighs and her skirt rides up, giving Millie’s hands delightful access to cup Jean’s arse, fingertips stroking the soft, bare skin above the tops of her stockings.

It occurs to Millie that she should really keep listening out, in case… in case…

Jean’s tongue in her mouth, Jean’s weight against her, Jean’s hand fumbling at the button of her trousers and then slipping down inside, into her knickers, to cup the heat of her there. Millie doesn’t keep listening, not to anything now but the thud of her own heartbeat in her ears, matching the rush of the ocean. Caught up in the way the salt scent on the air mingles with the sweetness of Jean’s skin as Millie buries her face in it, peppering kisses over Jean’s neck and throat, everywhere she can reach.

When Jean crooks her fingers, pressing them against Millie, Millie’s hips arch up into the touch and she makes a long, high-pitched sound, clutching Jean closer to her.

“Hush, dear.” There’s laughter in Jean’s voice. “You don’t know who might hear you.” Jean’s fingers draw light circles around Millie’s clit as she speaks, sending lightning forking through Millie’s belly. “Had I best stop?”

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” Millie manages to bite out, followed by a helpless groan as Jean’s movements become more purposeful, more direct. Jean catches Millie’s mouth with her own, muffling her moans with a kiss as she works a steady rhythm over Millie’s clit, her touch firm and relentless and so damned good that Millie can hardly stand it.

Millie can feel herself spiralling higher and higher, her body tensing underneath Jean’s, all the wide, open space around them shrinking down until nothing exists but the pulsing heat where Jean is touching her. Jean’s fingers glide over her again and again, slick and easy, and Millie’s hips move in time with them, her breath ragged. She breaks their kiss and buries her face in the curve of Jean’s shoulder, whimpering against her skin there, her eyes pressed shut, lost entirely in Jean, the very centre point of her whole world.

She comes hard, shaking and gasping, biting her lip against the deluge of sounds that want to spill from her.

It takes a while before Millie can open her eyes again. She breathes, in the darkness, Jean’s hand resting gently against her, Jean’s body still covering her own, holding her there, safe.

Eventually, she squints a little against the light as she looks up at the bright blue sky behind Jean’s head, a few distant clouds drifting on the breeze. She’s _here_ , on this beach, in this city. This city, these people, this life she’s making, this feeling that she has right now this very moment, here, _with Jean_. Freedom and joy and the space to be whoever she wants to be in whatever peculiar ways she chooses.

Millie wraps her arms around Jean’s back and pulls her down flush against her, holding her close.

Jean doesn’t say anything, just holds Millie in turn, but Millie can feel that Jean’s breathing is a little uneven, her body hot and shifting just a bit against Millie. Millie lets her hands drift down to grip Jean’s arse again and pull in her, impossibly closer still, and Millie’s thigh slips between Jean’s legs, where the heat of her burns like a furnace.

Jean shivers and rocks against Millie, and Millie encourages her with her hands and her body and a stream of low, rambling, nonsense words of affection murmured in Jean’s ear. Such a short distance from the two of them an ocean wave, perhaps a little larger than the others, breaks against the shore, and Millie thinks about Jean-the-librarian. Jean, her superior at Bletchley, staid and implacable, who wouldn’t take any nonsense from any of them, least of all Millie. Jean who looked at first glance, and honestly at second as well, like she wouldn’t care to know an adventure if it danced naked in front of her.

Millie has learned so very, very much since those days.

And Jean, who crossed half the world with Millie and stayed here, who does not always find her way to things quickly, but gives them her whole limitless heart once she does, Jean bucks against Millie’s hand, here under the wide open sky, and comes, shuddering, with Millie’s name in her mouth.

In the aftermath, Jean collapses against Millie only for a moment while she regains her breath, and then she climbs to her feet. Millie squints up at her in surprise.

Jean reaches out her hand to Millie. “Come on then,” she says. “Shall we go for a swim?”

Millie blinks, feels a grin start to spread across her face. “It’ll be _freezing_.”

“You’ll survive,” Jean says, her tone sharp but her eyes brimming with merriment. “I’ll race you.”

Millie opens her mouth to find a new objection, but Jean is already halfway out of her remaining clothes, and Millie will under no circumstances be outdone.

She looks at Jean, at this utterly brilliant woman, who has chosen all of this with her, who chooses to stay with her, to adventure with her, no matter how dangerous things get, over and over and over again. 

Millie sheds her own clothes at some speed and follows Jean down the beach to the water’s edge, where the ocean is just as icy cold as she knew it would be. Her eyes still fixed on Jean, Millie takes a deep breath and throws herself into the water.

This, here, is her home.


End file.
